Card-based transactions may involve several parties, including cardholders, merchants, card issuers, and interchange networks. In some cases, the merchant may deal directly with the card issuer via the interchange network, while in other cases, an acquirer, which may be a bank, credit union, or other financial institution or other business, may act as an intermediary for the merchant. The card issuer may be a financial institution or other business that issues the card to the cardholder. The interchange network may be substantially any network, such as the network provided by Mastercard, Inc., which facilitates the transaction between the merchant/acquirer and the card issuer.
The majority of card issuers have transitioned to Europay, Mastercard, and Visa (EMV)-chip cards, which are more secure than the traditional magnetic strip cards they have largely replaced. However, EMV-chip cards continue to have magnetic strips on them in order to facilitate transactions at merchants whose terminals do not yet have chip readers. Further, EMV-chips may suffer from manufacturing defects, wear, or breakage, such that some percentage of EMV-chip cards do not function as well as desired. As a result, even for merchants who have chip readers, individual EMV-chip cards may not be successfully read, in which case the magnetic strip must be read by a magnetic strip reader (in a so-called “fallback” transaction). Such a substandard experience may not occur every transaction even for the same EMV-chip card, and a card that cannot be read by one chip reader may be read by another. It is unclear why a particular EMV-chip card may intermittently fail to perform, but the occurrence and the effect are undesirable. In particular, using the EMV-chip is more secure and reduces liability over using the magnetic strip, so it is desirable to minimize fallback transactions.
This background discussion is intended to provide information related to the present invention which is not necessarily prior art.